Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 3 January 2003

3 January 2003

With neither the injury crisis nor the players-recalled-from-loan crisis at Blundell Park showing any signs of remission, boss man Paul Groves is set to unleash more of his young guns in tomorrow's FA Cup clash with Burnley. Oh, and there's a little suspension crisis as well. Livvo is banned, meaning a full debut up front for wee David Soames; while the Grimsby Telegraph reckons Iain Ward and/or Chris Bolder could get a start, with Stace Coldicott being doubtful. Terry Cooke should replace John Oster; the man they call Gallimore is back; and, oh, everything. "We'll go for it and I hope it's an exciting game for the fans, plenty of goals, and a win for us," says Grover.

For Burnley, Lee Briscoe and Graham Branch are nursing injuries of their own, while Glen Little and Gareth Taylor are suspended - the latter pending an appeal, apparently; though the Diary would be interested to learn how to prove that a headbutt was unintentional.

Fans holding tickets for the postponed new year's day game with Bradford can exchange them for the Burnley match - assuming, of course, that the Burnley match goes ahead. "It's squelchy underfoot in parts, especially under the Upper Smiths Stand, but there's no standing water. We're confident the game will be okay," says groundsman Mike Phillips, shuffling nervously. "We're expecting a crowd of more than 6000 people," adds commercial fella Steve Wraith, gnawing compulsively at his fingernails.

Following sterling performances over Christmas, John Oster and Georges Santos have been named in the Nationwide Division 1 Team of the Week. The Diary thought this only existed in Championship Manager, but then Johnny and Georgesy are probably the only Town players ever to be thus acclaimed.

The Diary has been told in no uncertain terms to correct yesterday's assertion that one of the goals in Town's 2-1 defeat at Fulham the other year resulted directly from Matthew Bloomer tying his bootlaces. An irate correspondent points out that this version of events was a falsehood originating from then manager Robin 'Lennie' Lawrence. "Louis Saha scored because one of the other centre-backs backed off," writes said reader. "Bloomer was not involved in any way. Stop repeating the propaganda of the fool. That was a Lennie lie." Gosh! Sorry. But when you've had the sort of Christmas and new year the Diary had, fantasy and reality tend to blur into one.

And finally, fans of idiosyncratic football news website TEAMtalk will be delighted to note that today's story about Livvo's suspension for the Burnley game is headlined Livingstone to miss Tykes test. Admittedly, 'Clarets' would lose the alliteration, but they could have written 'Clarets clash', couldn't they.